Hikes in property taxes and new taxes proposed by former North Delhi Municipal Corporation Commissioner Madhup Vyas will not be implemented, Standing Committee Chairperson Veena Virmani said on Wednesday.
The Budget, placed by Ms. Virmani in the House, also proposed providing each Councillor a laptop and increasing funds allotted to them by ₹15,550 lakh from the Commissioner’s proposal of ₹5,450 lakh. This would mean Councillors in the 104 wards of the North Corporation would be given ₹2 crore each.
The Chairperson also proposed that the funds given under different account heads be subsumed under a single head. She said that this would make it easier for the Councillors to access the funds by removing limits on the purpose they could be used for. An increase in funds allotted for the Mayor’s expenses by ₹1 lakh was also put forward.
Revenue, expenditure
The hikes in property tax rates proposed were expected to bring in ₹100 crore in revenue apart from which new taxes such as betterment tax and professional tax were expected to bring in ₹550 crore in revenue. These will be forgone. Ms. Virmani also proposed reducing the amount of loan to be taken from ₹1,300 crore to ₹200 crore and reduced the total expenditure by about ₹57 lakh, while making proposals for increase in revenue by about ₹52 lakh.
The Budget placed on Wednesday also made proposals for a “toy bank” for students of North Delhi Municipal Corporation schools, a bridge programme for those students who joined schools after having skipped the first few years of initial schooling.